Abstract

Politics makes strange bedfellows, including alliances of profiteers and moralists who lobby for the same regulations, but for vastly different reasons. Whether such coalitions promote alcohol prohibition (as did the bootleggers and Baptists to whom similar “unholy alliances” are likened), tobacco restrictions, NAFTA, or climate-change policies, political entrepreneurs are the glue that holds them together.

Simmons, Randy T. and Thomas, Diana Weinert and Yonk, Ryan, Bootleggers, Baptists, and Political Entrepreneurs: Key Players in the Rational Game and Morality Play of Regulatory Politics (July 4, 2011). The Independent Review, Winter 2011. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1878644